What comes to mind first when someone mentions a great white shark?
Is it diving with sharks in their natural environment, like a number of other adventure enthusiasts? Or is it images of a big grey predator with rows of sharp teeth, dorsal fin protruding out of the water, ready to attack the next available surfer?
"Ever since Steven Spielberg's Jaws trilogy in the 1980s left a whole generation scared to even get into a bath tub, the Great White has been given a bad press," said Alison Towner, a marine biologist at Marine Dynamics in Gansbaai on South Africa's Western Cape.
Even people who were initially wary of diving with sharks, bubble over with enthusiasm and awe as soon as they remove their mouthpiece upon emerging from the water and the cage.
go shark cage diving have been Dyer Island (Gansbaai, South Africa) and the Neptune Islands near Adelaide, Australia. However, in recent years Isla Guadalupe in Mexican waters has surfaced as another top destination offering crystal clear waters for most of the year.
"The white shark has been protected here since 1991 but still there is illegal poaching. Certain celebrities have come to Gansbaai and paid $100,000 for a white shark jaw," Miss Towner added.
South Africa was the first country in the world to fully protect the Great White, later followed by Malta, the United States, Australia, Namibia and the Maldives. But it the Gansbaai coastline that Towner maintains is the white shark capital of the world.
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